SDSU gender equity

Men's teams: 6

Women's teams: 12

New team: SDSU plans to add women's lacrosse next year with 12 new scholarships.

In 2008-09: 49.3 percent of athletics scholarship money went to women even though 57.1 percent of the eligible student population was female. That's because football uses far more scholarships (85) than any women's program.

CSU target: gender ratio of athletics scholarship spending must be within five percentage points of the overall student gender ratio.

A decrease in the percentage of female students at San Diego State has relieved some pressure on the school to add an additional women’s sports program to its athletic department.

As a result, SDSU has shelved plans to add a women’s sand volleyball program and instead will hope that it reaches gender-equity targets by adding just one new women’s program -- lacrosse -- for next year. The gender-ratio targets stem from a 1993 lawsuit filed by the California National Organization for Women (Cal-NOW) against the California State University system.

“We’re not going to be adding sand volleyball, at least for the foreseeable future,” SDSU Athletic Director Jim Sterk said. “We think we’re within the guidelines of Cal-NOW by adding lacrosse. We think we’re fine where we are.”

In 2008, SDSU announced plans to add two new women’s teams -- lacrosse and sand volleyball -- to comply with the CSU’s gender-ratio targets. Those targets called for the ratio of spending on female grants-in-aid in athletics to be within five percentage points of a school’s proportion of NCAA-eligible female undergraduate students overall.

In 2005-06, SDSU’s overall female student ratio was 58.6, but only 46.8 percent of spending on grants-in-aids went to female athletes, largely because football uses far more scholarships (85) than any women's sport. The disparity means SDSU was 6.8 percentage points off its target range.

To reach compliance, SDSU calculated in 2008 that 12 new women’s grants-in-aid in lacrosse and eight more in sand volleyball would be enough. Now it looks like lacrosse alone may be enough in part because SDSU’s female undergrad ratio has gone down slightly each year to about 56.7 last fall. For the most recent year of data available -- 2008-09 -- the spending ratio on grants-in-aid was 49.3 percent for female athletes -- less than 3 percentage points off the mark.

In a CSU report last summer, SDSU indicated that “the percentage of female students in the enrolled population has declined such that the university will be able to meet or exceed our compliance target.”

SDSU also can move closer to its target ratio by reducing the grants-in-aid awarded to out-of-state men’s recruits. Because out-of-state scholarships are more expensive than in-state, the expense ratio of male-to-female grants-in-aids will come down if fewer out-of-state scholarships are awarded to men. SDSU indicated in the same CSU report that it planned to reach gender equity by regulating “the number of out-of-state scholarships awarded to men and women athletes such that the budget targets are met.”

A settlement agreement with Cal-NOW compelled CSU schools to reach gender-equity targets in participation, scholarships and funding by 1999. Since 2000, CSU officials have monitored the settlement objectives on a voluntary basis. The voluntary guidelines help protect the CSU from gender-equity lawsuits.

Last year, SDSU hired a coach for lacrosse, its 13th women’s sports program. SDSU has had six men's sports since 2000, when it eliminated men's volleyball to cut costs.